Chapter Six: Seems You've Never Tasted Fear
While still miles away, Eggman's creation was leaving a visible trail of destruction from where Shadow and Rouge stood. The Death Egg mech turned and began marching towards the city, only slowing or stopping occasionally to fight off some law enforcement that had the misfortune of getting in its way. Suddenly, the Doctor's voice could be heard from a loud-speaker on the robot's mouth.
"Attention citizens of Station Square! Do not resist and you will not be harmed!" Eggman crowed, loud enough for Shadow and Rouge to hear clearly from this distance. "Tell your officials to stand down and surrender, and to hand over that blasted, blue hedgehog! Comply, and you will all be spared the wrath of the Death Egg, and be granted asylum in my new Empire!"
Shadow scoffed at the Doctor's boasting, and turned to face Rouge.
"Let me handle this," he told her, still protectively holding her arm. "This won't take long. Get somewhere safe, if he attacks the bridge this whole area could go beneath the water."
Rouge raised a brow, then shot Shadow a confused scowl.
"Uh, no?" she replied indignantly, her usual sassy tone returning. "Why the hell would I sit this out? I'm not about to go cower somewhere while you have all of the fun!"
The huntress couldn't fathom why Shadow would even suggest such a thing. It was one thing with Black Doom; that was personal, but busting up Eggman and his mechs had become a common occurrence for the both of them. She understood that this time, Shadow had "business" with the Doctor, but it's not like she'd be in the way when the time for interrogation came. If anything, she could be an asset in that regard as well.
"Besides," she added before Shadow could respond, "I promised to help you with this."
"Rouge..." Shadow unconsciously tightened his grip on the white bat a little. He was acting foolish, he knew that; Rouge was excellent in a fight, even moreso when they worked together. Still... the thought of her being in any remote danger right now, after wrestling with his fear of losing people, put a cold pit in his gut. Finally though, Shadow relented, and sighed.
"You're right... sorry," he told her, and released his grip on her arm. Shadow turned to look back at Eggman's robot as it continued to advance towards the city. "I'll head for it now, try and stop it from getting any further into the city. Once you get within range, work whatever tricks you want." He glanced back at Rouge and managed a smirk. "Any objections?"
With a satisfied grunt, Rouge's smug smile returned. "None at all, but before we go..." The huntress quickly leaned in to plant a soft kiss on Shadow's cheek. "For luck," she purred into his ear.
After giving Rouge a look, the Ultimate Life-Form shook off her flirt with a shake of his head and a "Tch!", and turned away so that damned tease of a spy wouldn't see him hiding a smile. For a "professional jewel thief," Rouge wasn't always behaving in a way most people would call "professional" on the job.
The bat gave Shadow a flirtatious wink as she pulled away, then gracefully took to the sky, now turning her full attention towards the colossal robot stomping through the city.
"Hmph. Fine, have a head-start, I'll leave you in the dust in a second either way," Shadow said as he watched Rouge soar away. She may not have been as fast as Sonic or himself, but the dark Mobian had to admit Rouge was a fast flyer.
Crouching down for a moment, Shadow got into position, and then leapt down the bridge and began sliding down the archway in a grind, sparks leaving a blazing trail behind him. Bending his knees just right to build more speed and momentum, Shadow boosted the jets of his fire skate with pinpoint precision, and launched himself like a shooting star, flying through the air and into the city below. The Ultimate Life-Form used his built-up speed to run at a ninety-degree angle along the sides of the buildings, pumping his legs as fast as he could to never lose his momentum. He leapt from wall to wall, then to shorter structures, then rubble until he wasn't in danger of falling too far. Still, Shadow wanted to avoid being near this robot's feet, and so he leapt from rooftop to rooftop until he was close enough to see how truly large it was in scale with everything.
Only a few blocks away now, the look-alike head of Dr. Eggman's mech swiveled to face Shadow, and its yellow eyes turned red to reflect the Doctor's reaction at what he saw. The robot pointed a missile from one of its hands like an accusing finger at the black hedgehog.
"Sonic?! Is that you?!" Eggman bellowed from his creation's speaker. "I don't know if my eyes are playing tricks, if you're trying some disguise, or whatever it is that's going on, it matters not! Now that you're here, I can make an example to the people of this city of those who oppose my Empire!"
"Sonic?" Shadow repeated, raising an eyebrow. "Have you lost your senses returning here? Not too much, I hope; you have answers I need." He took a stance, his red eyes beginning to glow and spark with wrath. "I'm getting them from you, one way or another. You can tell me, or I can make you. It's up to you how many pieces I leave you in tonight."
Eggman was silent for a moment; that was unnervingly different from any threat Sonic would ever make. Reacting in a panic-quickened state, the Doctor's robot leapt high into the air, and began firing missiles at Shadow.
"Useless," Shadow scoffed, immediately vanishing in a flash of blue light. He warped towards each missile Eggman fired at him, knocking them back at the colossal robot. The mech fired a gun from its other hand to destroy the missiles before they hit, but Shadow had used the missiles as a path to draw near the head. The black hedgehog rolled himself up, and then slammed down on the robot's dome with incredible force, causing the robot to stagger somewhat and coercing Eggman to scream in dismay from the cockpit. Still, the metal from the robot held strong, and the Doctor had the Death Egg mech try to grab Shadow with its right arm. The Ultimate Life-Form hit the giant metal palm with a Chaos Spear, knocking it away long enough for him to jump to safety.
Meanwhile, Rouge weaved between buildings, sticking to the shadows to keep out of sight of the behemoth robot as she drew closer. She could see G.U.N. vehicles and mechs approaching from all sides in the distance, preparing to surround and close in on the Doctor's towering monstrosity. Thankfully, the local law enforcement had fallen back, focusing their efforts on evacuating Station Square of innocents.
Eggman's voice echoed through the city streets as he noticed Shadow, and the agent took advantage of the few moments he was distracted. Cover had quickly become scarce as she got closer, so having Eggman's attention focused elsewhere gave her time to find a good spot to lie low long enough to contact the Commander. She dropped to a fire escape out of view several blocks away, but paused to listen to the brief conversation between Shadow and The Doctor.
'What the hell?' Rouge thought to herself as it became clear that Robotnik didn't recognize The Ultimate Life-Form. Had being trapped in the time hub for a prolonged period affected his memory or...? "Shit," she muttered under her breath, as she realized what might be happening. All of the pieces fell into place a little too perfectly, though Rouge prayed her assumption was wrong.
Both past and present versions of the evil genius had presumably been trapped within the timeless void upon being defeated by the past and present versions of Sonic. Between the older model of mech Eggman had turned up in, the subtle differences in his way of speaking, and seemingly having no recollection of who Shadow was... there was a high probability of this being the Doctor's past incarnation. But if that was the case, where was the version of him that they were familiar with?
Rouge didn't have time to think on it more as another round of explosions rang out across the city. The bat hastily pulled a small communicator from her pocket and opened a channel directly to the G.U.N Commander.
"This is Agent Rouge. Shadow and I are dealing with Dr. Eggman at Station Square. Focus your forces on evacuation; we can handle this," she paused for a moment, then added, "There's a possibility that the other version of Eggman is also nearby, keep an eye out." With that, Rouge closed the channel, not waiting for a response. She knew the Commander would understand; she had been the one to debrief him after the Time Eater incident after all. Right now, she needed to focus on helping Shadow.
"You will not evade me forever, hedgehog!" Dr. Eggman shouted. "I will flatten you!" The giant mech leapt high into the air and began firing its machine gun at Shadow, trying to force him to run where the behemoth robot could crush him under its feet.
Shadow gritted his teeth in irritation; the Doctor wasn't going to make this easy. All the edgy hedgehog cared about was tearing the head off of the robot so he could start interrogating the eccentric madman. He already knew what the Doctor was trying to do... and it gave him an idea. Once he was 'forced' underneath the looming silhouette of the robot, Eggman accelerated towards the ground to crush Shadow before he could run. Timing it just right, the Ultimate Life-Form began to glow red with energy as the mech fell towards him.
"Chaos Blast!" Shadow shouted, and a massive wave of energy struck the Doctor's robot, halting its trajectory and spinning it around 180 degrees before it crashed into the street about a hundred feet away from Shadow.
"CURSE YOU!" Eggman spat through the speaker, his robot immediately getting to its feet and firing everything he had at Shadow; bullets, missiles and lasers filled the air, forcing Shadow to keep moving to avoid everything.
"Damn it," Shadow cursed under his breath, narrowly dodging a cluster of missiles he didn't have time to warp to and deflect. "The Doctor is going to regret making this such a chore!"
Rouge leapt from the fire escape to the roof, just in time to see Shadow's Chaos Blast launch Eggman's mech. As luck would have it, the robot's back was now turned towards her as it stood back up to counter attack. The huntress reached into her other pocket with a smirk and pulled out three small, flat disks; EMP explosives. Despite being about the size of a quarter, they packed a serious punch to anything electrical.
'Good thing I grabbed everything useful from the room before I left,' she thought to herself as she kicked off from the ledge of the roof, then dove towards the giant mech at top speed. She chucked all three disks as if they were shuriken directly at the right arm of the robot as she swooped past it, then landed with a flip onto an adjacent rooftop.
Upon impact, the disks exploded into three massive bursts of arcing electricity throughout the metal arm. Abruptly, and with a satisfying sound of crackling and grinding, all of the weapons it had been firing at Shadow were disabled. The mech stumbled again, as the now useless arm fell limply to the robot's side.
"WHAT...?!" Eggman screeched as he struggled to keep the metal version of himself from tipping over again. As a result, the attacks from the remaining functional weaponry temporarily halted, giving Shadow an opening.
Rouge shot Shadow a smile and a wink, then quickly whipped out her communicator again before taking flight once more. As she circled back behind the robot, she took a moment to send a quick message to Shadow's wrist communicator; "Btw, you left something behind this morning " After hitting send, Rouge drove a spinning kick into the center of the mech's back, causing it to lurch forward and further lose its balance.
Shadow couldn't help but admire the precision of Rouge's attack. When his communicator pinged, he read the message and cringed at himself; had he really just left the fake Emerald behind? It wasn't like he hadn't planned on coming back to the hotel. The black hedgehog mentally shook his head at himself; Rouge would never let him live this down if he let this get to him at all.
He smirked up at her as he charged back at Dr. Eggman, intent on finishing this fight while Rouge's attack still had it off-balance. While the Death Egg robot tried to regain its footing, Shadow picked up his speed, rolled back into a black ball, and sped himself so that he flew up the side of a building, and then came slamming down into Eggman's robotic image. Over and over, Shadow slammed into the mech with the force of a meteor, gradually denting the metal all over the robot. Soon the eyes and metal mustache were smashed up, and the Doctor was beginning to lose all vital functionality inside his robot.
"No! Integrity is below fifty percent, my power levels are decreasing!" Eggman fumed, and then suddenly redirected all the power his disabled arm could no longer use into the remaining functional one. "I'll make you pay for this, you fetid little hedgehog! You and your little bat friend!" He aimed the working arm at Shadow, and all the remaining laser cannons on the mech began to glow with a dangerous light.
'If I take out the arm before the guns can fire...' Shadow mused to himself, then had an idea. "Rouge! The fake Emerald! Now!"
The white bat had landed on another rooftop to find another angle of attack, but at Shadow's request, she glanced down and gave a brisk nod. Rouge reached into her shirt and withdrew the convincing copy of the citrine colored Chaos Emerald. Seemed it had been a smart move to "borrow" it back that morning.
Without the slightest hint of hesitation, the jewel thief tossed the Emerald down to Shadow. She hadn't even given a second thought about relinquishing it to him again, which surprised even her when she realized it.
With a satisfied "Hm!", Shadow held the Chaos Emerald before him, staring down the cannon building energy right at him with a cold smile.
"It's over, Doctor," the ebony hedgehog affirmed. "Chaos Control" In a flash, time froze around Shadow, but he could tell the fake Emerald's energy wouldn't hold this for long; he could already see the area his Chaos Control had stopped was about to return to normal. In a split-second, Shadow dashed up the Death Egg bot, and blasted right through the joint, and then fired several Chaos Spears at the head and torso just as the Chaos Control wore off.
Once time returned to normal, the robot's built-up laser attack no longer had an attached barrel to shoot out of. So the backup of energy detonated within the Death Egg mech, the explosion ripping the whole machine in two and causing each half to fly apart and crash into the pavement beneath them.
Satisfied that the robot was now defunct, Shadow warped over to the cracked and dented dome of the head; he didn't want to give Eggman a chance to escape. Shadow smashed his fists into the weakest part to create an opening, then grabbed onto it and tore the whole head off, and then tossed it aside, narrowly avoiding crushing a parked car. The ebony hedgehog looked into the machine to see Dr. Eggman, wounded and dazed but still very much alive and well.
Rouge had floated down to join Shadow, not getting a chance to warn him of her theory before he had unveiled the Doctor within. One look at the man inside, and Rouge sighed in disappointment.
His appearance was that of a Robotnik who had yet to encounter a decade or more of defeat; no wrinkles or frown lines. Though he was just as rotund as the Eggman they were familiar with, he was... more compact in size. He was clearly much younger, though his appearance was no less despicable to look at.
"Eggman from the past..." Rouge muttered, crossing her arms as she watched the Doctor begin to stir and come to his senses.
Eggman finally looked up to see Shadow and Rouge both standing over him, and a look of wild panic spread across his face.
"W-w-wait!" he wailed, his hands flying up above his head in a weak attempt to shield himself. This man was no doubt fearing for his miserable life. Clearly, he had figured out by now that this wasn't Sonic he was dealing with, especially after how brutally Shadow had taken down his mech. He was visibly shaking as he cowered pitifully before them. "I-I can explain!" the younger Doctor stammered as he frantically looked between Shadow and Rouge.
As Shadow eyed the pathetic sight of the past Doctor before him with disdain, his eyes narrowed into red daggers as a fierce anger began to burn within him. Rouge's words confirmed it; this wasn't the Eggman they knew, but rather the younger "Dr. Robotnik" that Sonic had thwarted in his youth. Shadow had been so dead-set on getting answers he'd barely thought about what the Doctor had been saying earlier, but now it all clicked into place.
Still... if this "Robotnik" was the same one that worked with the present-day Dr. Eggman, he may still have answers. Leaping down into the cockpit, Shadow grabbed a fistful of the Doctor's uniform, and pulled him halfway out of the seat.
"I need answers," Shadow snarled, his free hand a fist and crackling with Chaos energy. Robotnik's eyes widened at the burning rage within the Ultimate Life-Form's red eyes, trembling as Shadow held him up. "Where is your future self? What became of the technology you used to harness the Time Eater?"
"F-future self?" Robotnik stuttered, arching an eyebrow in confusion despite his fear. "Time Eater? I haven't the slightest-"
"Don't LIE to me!" Shadow shouted, and slammed Robotnik into the console, earning him a cry of pain from the younger Doctor. The black hedgehog picked him up again, his fist aimed at the Doctor's face.
"What. Did. You. Do. With. The. Time. Eater?" Shadow asked slowly, his words dripping with venom. In the back of his mind, a thought crossed Shadow's mind, that perhaps the Doctor wasn't lying. Perhaps, when Sonic defeated the Time Eater and things went back to normal...
'No, this might be my only chance to get answers,' Shadow thought, tightening his grip on Robotnik. 'He must talk.'
Rouge dropped down next to Shadow and firmly placed her hand on his shoulder. A sinking feeling had washed over her as she had been closely observing Robotnik's body language as he was interrogated, and she felt she had to step in.
"Shadow... he's not lying... I don't think he remembers anything," she said solemnly. "My best guess is that when they escaped the time void, this version was stripped of the memory, but he wasn't sent back to his own time like he should have been..." Rouge gave a heavy sigh as she looked back at the terrified man in Shadow's grip, and a small part of her felt sorry for him. "Just put him down, Shadow... Let me ask him some questions."
Glancing between Rouge and the Doctor, Shadow continued to glare daggers at Robotnik as he weighed what his ally had just said. He considered just... finishing the Doctor right then and there. If he didn't have any valuable knowledge, it might just be best to put down one of their more persistent enemies before he could cause anymore harm...
But with a dismissive grunt, Shadow simply released his grip on Robotnik and let him fall back into his seat. The angsty hedgehog turned his back on him and Rouge, fuming that he still hadn't made any headway on finding a way to harness the Time Eater's power.
After eyeing Shadow for a few moments, well aware of how he was feeling, Rouge resisted the urge to sigh and turned her attention to Robotnik. As soon as she did, the rotund man recoiled again, making her smirk a little.
"Doctor, with your IQ, you had to have known you weren't within your own time, or at the very least, you knew you were somewhere completely different," Rouge started, doing her best to keep a patient, even tone, despite the frustration she was feeling. "So, you should be able to answer the three questions I have for you, at the very least. Do that, and we'll leave you be. Sound fair?" What she didn't tell him was that G.U.N. would be arriving at any moment, so he wasn't about to get away either way.
Robotnik gave an uneasy nod. His eyes were periodically darting back to look at Shadow, as if he expected the dark hedgehog to turn and kill him at any moment.
"Good," Rouge said, crossing her arms again. "To begin with, what's the first thing you remember when you arrived in this time? Secondly, where did you arrive in this time? Lastly, how did you get this robot? I seriously doubt you came here with it."
"I..." Robotnik paused for a moment, then answered, "An underground base... that's the answer to all questions." Rouge raised a brow, waiting for him to elaborate, and the Doctor begrudgingly continued. "I-I remember waking up inside of a laboratory, obviously my own, but also... not." The younger Eggman rubbed his temples, seemingly trying to remember anything before that. "That... filthy blue vermin had just foiled my plans again, but then the next thing I knew, I found myself coming to, in that base... It was filled with... higher quality technology than what I had previously developed, but was clearly mine nonetheless. I took advantage of it and began my work on creating an upgraded version of my beautiful Death Egg Robot!" He quickly shot a glare at Shadow, adding, "Which the two of you have completely destroyed!"
Rouge looked back at Shadow. Could this actually be another lead, or another dead end? Perhaps the mainframe within the base he'd awoken in would have information. Her focus snapped back to Robotnik.
"Coordinates. Of the base. Now." She demanded.
"Gah... mm, very well..." Robotnik muttered, reluctant even despite the situation he was in. Shadow glanced back over his shoulder, watching the Doctor carefully for any suspicious movement. He seemed to notice this, and audibly gulped as he carefully hit a few buttons on a barely-functional console. After a few seconds, Robotnik produced a device like a small tablet, and begrudgingly held it out to Rouge.
"The coordinates and data you need to get inside are in there," he told them, frowning deeply as he complied. "Once you do, however, know that the base is designed to self-destruct within an hour without my personal, physical authorization. If there are any life signs detected there without my presence, unless you leave within an hour, all power sources are set to overload. Once that happens, you'll only have five minutes to get to a minimum safe distance."
"Will this city or anyone else be in danger when your base self-destructs?" Shadow asked curtly, never relaxing his glare at the Doctor.
"Hmph, of course not," Robotnik replied haughtily; his classic arrogance now showing itself over his fear. "I don't wish to eliminate or harm any citizen that could be a part of my Empire unless it's absolutely necessary to do so. Now, if Sonic were to get caught in the blast radius, that would be an ideal..." Shadow started to turn back around to slowly face the Doctor, his whole aura growing increasingly murderous as Robotnik got off track. "A-Anyway, while being right next to or within my base would be quite lethal, its self-destruct would hardly be noticed or felt. While all power sources within are set to blow, the base itself will then implode on itself, compressing and containing the explosion."
"How do we know you're not lying?" Shadow demanded with an icy cadence, slowly folding his arms.
"You don't, I suppose, and you won't until you get to the facility," Robotnik grumbled. "I have nothing to gain by lying to you, nor anything to lose at this point with the truth. I have other bases you won't learn about until it's too late, I can afford to lose this one!"
After considering the Doctor's words for several moments, Shadow looked at Rouge and nodded, leaping off the wreckage and onto the street below.
The next thing anybody knew, several lights suddenly shone down on Robotnik, who tried to shield his eyes from the abrupt glare. G.U.N. had arrived in force; several helicopters, more than a dozen armored vehicles, roughly thirty Beetle drones and about another fifty or sixty G.U.N. mechs and agents now surrounded Robotnik and the remains of his creation.
"Dr. Ivo Robotnik, we have you surrounded. You are now a prisoner of the Guardian Units of Nation!" The voice of their commanding officer told the Doctor as they closed in.
"What?! You can't do this to me, we had a deal!" Robotnik seethed, pointing accusingly at Rouge.
Rouge wagged a finger at him and tutted. "Ah, ah, ah, Doctor. When I said "we", I was only referring to Shadow and I," Rouge said with a wink, her usual smooth tone of voice returning. As she climbed up to the edge of the cockpit, she shot a sweet smile back down at Robotnik. "Thanks for the info, big boy," she purred, then gracefully hopped down and landed beside Shadow.
G.U.N. soldiers immediately moved in to make the arrest as the Doctor yelled a slew of threats directed towards her. The bat just smirked and discreetly handed the tablet to Shadow. Once the two were out of earshot of the military, Rouge finally spoke. She didn't want G.U.N. to overhear and mobilize any troops to the location, especially if what Robotnik said about the self-destruct function was true.
"The base is on the coast of Emerald Beach," Rouge told the hedgehog quietly. "The entrance is hidden within the western cliffside. I have no idea how Eggman managed to build an underground lab right under everyone's nose, but however he did it, it was a clever move. No one would think to look somewhere so close to civilization." She paused for a moment, deep in thought. "If this is legitimate, it makes me wonder how many other bases he managed to hide within the city limits," she pondered aloud, then shifted her gaze to Shadow.
"Hm," Shadow grunted in reply. "G.U.N. has the Doctor now, they can get that information from him. Any other bases aren't our concern right now." He double-checked the information on Robotnik's device, and then stored it away.
"Let me get us back to the hotel. Once we get there I can use my bike to get us there in no time." Holding the fake yellow Emerald above his head, Shadow called "Chaos Control!" and the two Mobians vanished in a flash of yellow light, reappearing a second later right outside the extravagant hotel they'd stayed in the previous night. Once they'd arrived, Shadow offered the Emerald back to Rouge.
"Good work, by the way," Shadow muttered with a slight smile, still having a hard time making himself pay compliments.
"You too, hotshot," Rouge replied with a beaming smile, then gazed down at the imitation Emerald he held out to her. After a few moments of wrestling with her temptation, she finally gently pushed it back towards him. "You said it yourself; it belongs back on the ARK," she said. "That's why you still accepted it yesterday, right? I only took it back today because you were careless enough to leave it in the room." She smirked a little then and shook her head. "You should know better by now not to leave Chaos Emeralds lying around where I can see them, phony or not... though it seems that, during that fight, you had counted on the likelihood that I had taken it back, hm?"
Shadow rolled his eyes as he tucked the imitation Chaos Emerald away. He'd had way too much on his mind that morning to even remember when he had stopped carrying it, but he still wasn't about to gush to Rouge about his troubles every time they came up. Besides, they'd already addressed it.
"Yes, I was careless, but as soon as I thought of it I figured you of all people wouldn't leave an Emerald behind. Even this fake one has proven useful," Shadow answered as he started making his way to his bike's hiding spot. He had a thought, and debated telling Rouge for a moment before finally deciding to go ahead and say it. Even after yesterday, sentimentality didn't come easy to him. "Besides... I trust you, and despite my instincts I've come to rely on you when we're working together." The ebony hedgehog's face threatened to burn a little pink at his own comment so he picked up the pace slightly as he approached his bike.
"I think you're the only person to ever tell me they trust me..." Rouge chuckled as they reached his motorcycle, still disguised as a run down old car. "It's... both nice and strange to hear those words directed at someone like me," she said, and planted a quick "thank you" kiss on his warm cheek. She'd been dying to kiss him more all day, so she wasn't about to let this opportunity pass her by.
Shadow stiffened, froze mid-step and quickly raised a hand to where Rouge's lips had touched, his pink blush deepening close to red.
"Rouge!" Shadow hissed, eyes darting around their surroundings. "Public!" There wasn't anyone close enough to see, or even care. But still!
Damn. Why did she always catch him off guard?
Rouge rolled her eyes, but her smile didn't waver. "Aw, c'mon, are you really gonna make a fuss over showing affection in public? After everything we did last night, somehow a little peck on the cheek, where people could potentially see us, is what gets you all hot and bothered?" The huntress took hold of Shadow's hand, intertwining her fingers with his. "Is this too much for you too?" she asked, swinging his arm for emphasis.
"Tch!" Shadow exclaimed. "Rouge, you're being ridiculous! I'm the Ultimate Life-Form, I have a reputation to uphold!" He tried to tug his hand free of Rouge's grasp. "This is unbecoming, it's-!" Unfortunately for him, Shadow's tug threw them both off balance and they stumbled and fell against Shadow's bike, causing the hologram to shimmer and fade as the bike's sensors detected the ebony hedgehog. The way they landed made it look as though Rouge had pinned Shadow down against the bike, and now their faces were barely an inch apart. The "Ultimate Life-Form's" face burned even hotter at this predicament, now too stunned to speak or move.
Surprise quickly gave way to that same fiery heat Rouge had felt the night before. Her smile became seductive, and instead of pulling herself away, she pressed her weight against Shadow a little more.
"What was that you were saying about your 'reputation', handsome?" she cooed, her half-lidded eyes gazing deeply into his. "Seems I finally found a way to subdue you, hm?"
Despite being once again flabbergasted by the bat, Shadow felt the same playful, half-irritated feeling from last night coming over him. His stunned face gave way to a determined frown as he gazed back at Rouge.
"Hm, as if subduing you is any challenge," he retorted, and suddenly reached around and pinched Rouge on the rear. Before even giving her a chance to react, Shadow warped out of her grasp to the other side of the bike, smirking smugly.
Rouge gave a tiny yelp of surprise, then gripped the bike seat to catch herself from stumbling forward as Shadow's body was suddenly no longer under her holding her up. Once she realized what he'd done, the huntress straightened up and shot him an irritated, but still playful glare.
"Damn it, Shadow!" Rouge growled, then crossed her arms and pouted. "You're no fun! That was a cheap move and you have such an unfair advantage," she grumbled, turning away from him with an overdramatic huff.
"There you go again, talking about others playing fair," Shadow chided back as he mounted the motorcycle. "Hypocrite. If you want to even the playing field with me, you're just going to have to try harder." The engine growled to life as he looked over at Rouge. "Well? Are you done fooling around or are you just going to catch up with me later?"
"Hmph, you wouldn't dare leave me behind," Rouge retorted as she climbed on behind him. Her arms coiled around his waist and she snuggled her head against his back. Any irritation she had been feeling instantly evaporated, and she breathed a deeply contented sigh. Now that they were together, there was no doubt that bike rides would be even more enjoyable than before.
'Heh, not much he can do to escape my affection like this,' Rouge thought to herself with a grin, holding onto him a little tighter than usual. She then rested her chin on his shoulder and nestled her cheek against his neck.
"Ready whenever you are, sugar," she purred into his ear.
Despite his self-consciousness' objection, Shadow relented a little and reached back to stroke Rouge's chin as she whispered into his ear, still smirking despite his flushed face.
"Hold on tight then," Shadow replied in a low, purring tone of his own, and set the kickstand back up. "We finally have a lead, now there's no stopping us." With that, Shadow revved the cycle up, and then sped off.
-Author's_
-Note:-
Gotta have some action in a Sonic the Hedgehog based fanfic, especially with Shadow. In case it wasn't clear Eggman's mech here is based off the Death Egg boss from Sonic 2. Had someone ask if it was based off the mech from the 2nd movie, and I assumed that was based off the Death Egg mech so I guess it was, lol; I did like the movie design.
Since the games aren't clear how the fake Chaos Emerald's power compared to a real Emerald (please correct me if I'm wrong), I decided to nerf the duration of its Chaos Control and mention it was unstable. Still wanted to use it, call it "Chekov's Chaos Emerald" if you like, since Sonic was able to use Chaos Control with it in SA2. Hope to have the rest up soon, wife and I are about 98% done with the final chapter, and then one more edit!